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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191038">the carriage held but just ourselves and immortality</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanica/pseuds/cyanica'>cyanica</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>maybe i just took too much cough medicine [whumptober 2020] [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Black Panther Shuri (Marvel), Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Shuri, Mental Breakdown, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Protective T'Challa (Marvel), Sibling Love, Survivor Guilt, Sweet T'Challa (Marvel), Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:10:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,824</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191038</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanica/pseuds/cyanica</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A symbol of eternal infinity was carved into the baobab tree, etched like an abstract scar, a perfect indentation of immorality born from human ephermality, and T’Challa and Shuri’s names were depicted into the hardened wood over the circles of infinity. </p><p>Or T’Challa is dead, there’s a carved infinity symbol on a tree, and Shuri wants to burn everything to ash.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Shuri &amp; T'Challa (Marvel)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>maybe i just took too much cough medicine [whumptober 2020] [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947775</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the carriage held but just ourselves and immortality</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>au in which t’challa died in endgame, and shuri’s destined to take on the mantle of black panther. </p><p>whumptober prompt day 19: broken hearts, grief, mourning loved one, survivor’s guilt</p><p>title from ‘because i could not stop for death’ - emily dickson</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>Because I could not stop for Death –</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He kindly stopped for me –</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The Carriage held but just Ourselves –</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And Immortality.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Feels shorter than the Day</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I first surmised the Horses' Heads</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Were toward Eternity –</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>
    <em>‘Because I could not stop for death’ - Emily Dickson</em>
  </b>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>There was a baobab tree beyond the glowing city of light, deep within the greener forest where mist smothered the expanse of the Earth, and the stars reigned high into the night in all their thousands of constellations that built together the fabric of the universe. </p><p> </p><p>A symbol of eternal infinity in the Tree of Life was etched like an abstract scar, a perfect indentation of immorality born from human ephemerality, as their names were depicted into the hardened baobab wood across the circles of infinity. </p><p> </p><p><em>“Is this what westerners do for fun?”</em> Shuri had sighed as if she were annoyed, all the while running after her brother through the muddy earth and jagged rocks in a feeble effort to keep up with him. He liked to tease her, but they both played that game, and somehow now, thinking back on it all, Shuri felt something burn hurtful like embers at the base of her fingertips, the flesh of her stomach, her lungs. <em>“Carve clichés into poor, ancient trees?”</em></p><p> </p><p>The night was cool, abnormally, inexplicitly so for what it should have been, yet even so – Shuri felt red. Crimson, vermilion heat that tasted like iron blood in her mouth, while embers of aflamed ash igniting throughout her veins had consumed her. </p><p> </p><p><em>“Sister, we are embracing the cultures of other lands, is that so terrible?”</em> T’Challa had told her, and she’d scoffed, throwing a piece of bark at him once they’d stood at the giant base of the baobab tree. He could have caught it, she knew he would have, but he let it hit him on his right shoulder and chose to smirk at her cynical apathy as he treasured it.</p><p> </p><p><em>“You just want to leave your mark.”</em> Shuri knew, smirking because she could pull apart the inner workings of her brother’s mind in the same way she could reassemble minuscule pieces of vibranium meteorites and sonic stabilizers that temporarily disabled the most indestructible element in all existence. </p><p> </p><p>T’Challa knew this too, of course. They were made that way. </p><p> </p><p><em>“Perhaps.”</em> He had said. <em>“I want this to be our forever.” </em></p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t known quite what he meant, but –</p><p> </p><p>Shuri thinks that now, maybe she did. </p><p> </p><p>Maybe their symbol of infinite eternity carved like a wound into the Tree of Life existed as a wonderful contradiction of mortal life itself. Maybe their names inflicted upon the baobab served as a haunting memory to whoever remained after the intangible, phantom war that the descendants of the future – the ones left to live until they ceased to breathe themselves – were to bear witness to the relics of those who hadn’t. Maybe the tree was a warning, a constant reminder inside the depth of Shuri’s bleeding heart and burning lungs that made oxygen seem foreign, that life was so illogically, unbearably ephemeral – <em>human.</em></p><p> </p><p>Because –</p><p> </p><p>Because why did the nebula of stars beyond the horizon feel like they’d cascade down upon Wakanda with each beat of her heart? Why did the mountains echo with his voice, his name, her name on his tongue as if not to taunt her until the end of her own mortal infinity? </p><p> </p><p>Why was the fucking <em>tree</em> of all things causing her lungs to diminish with air, and for an inhumane, chaotic pure <em>flame</em> to burn in its wake?</p><p> </p><p>Her brother was dead. The tree was a tomb. Their infinity was a lie.</p><p> </p><p>If there was a sparking crimson flare in her shaking, bruised-knuckle hands that scorched as a murderous light of pure vermilion iridescence, she chose to ignore it. She’d carried what should have been fireworks of rhapsodic celebration out into the forest’s border with a smouldering heart and tired lung, and a dead brother that had left his mark on the tree, in her heart like a festering wound of carved baobab wood. She didn’t know how else to free herself from his limboish purgatory where everything seemed to hurt as if she were the one who had died, other than <em>this.</em></p><p> </p><p>The red glow of evil luminosity contorted beyond the shadows of the mountains as she shook. Painful, frustrated tears that pushed themselves from her eyes as Shuri grit her teeth together to stifle the scream, all while scarlet ruby shone from her hands like the facade of power to fix what was so very very wong – as if burning the immorality of the Tree of Life down along with all its falsehood of lies, will bring T’Challa away from the astral plane, away from where he shouldn’t belong, and bring him <em>home.</em></p><p> </p><p>Shuri brought her hand up, breathing as if she couldn’t, and the weaponised flare casted deathly radiance over everything it touched.</p><p> </p><p><em>Good,</em> she thought because it deserved to hurt as she did, it deserved her infinite carving against its lively wood to burn and burn and burn until eternity was nothing but ash left to rot in the atmosphere and succumb to whatever happened to stardust after it was no longer what it once had been.</p><p> </p><p>How else to remove a craving from a tree, other than to burn the forest to smithereens?</p><p> </p><p>But something had interrupted the glow. A deeper shadow that chased away the flare’s crimson scotch over the land appeared like a spectre amongst the forest, in front of the tree and breathing her name.</p><p> </p><p>“Shuri,” it said with familiar eyes and a soft voice that she’d only ever heard in midnight fevered nightmares since it ceased to exist from reality so selfishly. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>No. No no. Nononono.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>This wasn’t right. It wasn’t <em>fair.</em></p><p> </p><p>Shuri’s mouth ached to scream, to cry, to laugh because it had finally happened. Amongst all the hurt and the fury and bleeding her knuckled to the bones against vibranium walls, she had lost it. Sanity was a fragile thing, and after Thanos, after T'Challa – her own mind finally crumbling into grief-fueled hallucinogenic psychosis just made sense. Made sense in the way that fucking tree didn’t, and made sense in the way stars that had yet to rain down armageddon didn’t. </p><p> </p><p>“Baby sister, what are you doing?” T’Challa said with sad eyes, but held himself as someone unbelievably steady – completely grounded. He had no <em>right.</em> This clothing was made entirely of silk, and dyed aso oke of whites and silvers – something too drastically different from any other time she’d known him, and the colour ached within her chest like it were something evil. </p><p> </p><p>Shuri scoffed, tears streaking down her face in the darkened abyss of the too-silent forest. “You left your mark on the tree,” she said and her voice didn’t sound like her own, “but you’re not here and I want it gone.”  </p><p> </p><p>T’Challa watched her hyperventilating chest rise and fall with each flicker of the rubescent, looking down, looking incredibly sad within the peaceful aura that she imagined the afterlife to feel like within the ancestral plane. “Am I?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>A riddle.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Shuri ground her teeth together, aware of the distant taste of blood within her mouth and the pain radiating against her jaw from the forcablity of it all. She had come here to <em>fix</em> everything, to retribute the lies of immoral eternity that hung like a noose from this Tree of Death, and scream her brother’s name into the forest’s oblivion in manic psychosis to bring him back the way <em>half the fucking universe</em> had been brought back – but here T’Challa was, ruining everything with his sad serenity and pitiful eyes within Shuri’s fever dream. </p><p> </p><p>“You’re gone, brother! You’re gone, you’re dead, you’re gone and you’re not coming back!” Her voice was glass against steel wool, tearing at her vocal cords and they felt bloody, but the words wouldn’t die from her tongue. “There’s our infinity carved into that tree, but you’re gone! You’re dead!”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe,” he said the way someone would if they were having the gentlest of conversations, and his tone reminded Shuri of lilac fields and morning haze and the colour of the sun. If Shuri's manifestation of the ancestral plane was <em>this,</em> then the real one must be something brilliant. “But I’m here, little sister.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re my mind.” Shuri told him as if it made it so, as if there was a clinical and rational explanation to anything and everything, and things would always make sense in the end, the way numbers and technology and science did. </p><p> </p><p>But maybe she wasn’t so sure anymore. </p><p> </p><p>“You know that death is not the end.” As the words filled the cooling air, T’Challa stepped forward, close enough that Shuri could see through his eyes, and find a calming glow that resided inside him. It overpowered the evil iridescence of the burning flare, enough for his light to smother the red into nothingness. Shuri’s trembling hands dropped the distinguished flare, and brought them up toT’Challa’s face, needing the essence of goodness to drown away that all-consuming, self-ruining vengeance to avenge what had already since found peace. “You reach out with both hands in Bast and Sekhmet, and they lead you into the green veld where you can run forever.”</p><p> </p><p>Shuri’s chest tightened, ceasing with the tears pushing themselves from her eyes and so she held her brother close enough within her arms until it no longer hurt. The burning had become ash with the extinction of the flame – yet the familiar ache remained as it would until the end of her moral epheramility. “I miss you, brother.”</p><p> </p><p>“We will reunite together once again,” T’Challa whispered, air brushing against the palm of her hands, his being so solid, so impossibly <em>real.</em> As he spoke, her mind flashed of heart-shaped supernatural herbs, of obsidian vibranium armour, of the woman who would come to protect the tribes of Wakanda wearing the mantle of the Black Panther, and it looked undeniably like her. “But you are needed here, Shuri.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I</em> need <em>you.”</em> She protested weakly, sounding much younger, much smaller than she was. She sounded like T’Challa’s baby sister running into his room at sleepless, 3 AM nights when the sky was too loud and the clouds were too dark, and he was so very, very warm.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll always be here,” T’Challa smiled, not unkindly nor with remorseful sadness, but with nostalgia consuming his soul as he looked towards the baobab behind them, stand tall and proud and lively against this intangible storm. Their symbols shone against his celestial light, and Shuri couldn’t recoil why it had upset her so, why she thought it had ever belonged in the ruins of ash and blood with everything else that had died in greater sacrifice. </p><p> </p><p>It was suddenly the only thing she wanted to look at. The only place she wanted to be.</p><p> </p><p>“Our transient infinity.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>rest in power, king &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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